


Set My Heart Free

by AtLeastWeWontBeLonelyInHell



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Tragedy, dark themes, dark&twisty, re-post from 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2019-10-11 03:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17439392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtLeastWeWontBeLonelyInHell/pseuds/AtLeastWeWontBeLonelyInHell
Summary: It’s one of those cases she hates right from the start.She knows before Cho is done telling her the facts, knows before she goes into that house herself, knows before she get’s a look at that teenage girl sitting on the living room floor.





	Set My Heart Free

**Author's Note:**

> And a BIG special thank you goes to the wonderful clairebare for beta reading!

**Set My Heart Free**

**.**

**.**

Teresa Lisbon was 12 when her mother died in an car accident and Teresa spend most of her life wishing she would have been in that car with her, dying as well.  _(But she wasn’t)._  (She didn’t).

She was left alone with three younger brothers and her father instead and she had to fight hard to keep them alive.  _(Doing a lot of things she shouldn’t have)._

It ended like most of those stories do, she made it out alive. Packing up her things and leaving her so called home as soon as she could.  _(Not looking back once)._

But sometimes in the middle of the night she still wakes up screaming.  _(Her fathers sad eyes haunting her)._  (Green mixing with blue).

And most nights, it doesn’t take much for her to drift back to that faithful night in their old living room. (Kneeling on that dirty carpet with tears on her teenage face). Her fathers gun heavy in her shaking hands.

Pressing it against his temple. _(Pulling the trigger)._

(And setting herself free).

.

It’s one of those cases she hates right from the start.

She knows before Cho is done telling her the facts, knows before she goes into that house herself, knows before she get’s a look at that teenage girl sitting on the living room floor. (Knows before she spots a gun lying on the dirty carpet beside a dead mans body).

She’s stumbling out of there almost instantly, pushing past EMT’s, SAC PD Officers and her own team. Almost running.

 _(She’s not going to work this case)._  (She can’t).

She makes it to the car, before she doubles over vomiting on the street.

.

Bertram wants a reason. A good one.  _(One she can’t give him)._

And so she ends up in the interrogation room two hours later in front of a traumatized teenage girl, with dark curly hair and emerald green eyes.  _(Her own hands shaking)._

She’s not sure how long she’s sitting there, watching that younger version of her own. _(Saying nothing)._ (Nothing at all). Before tears start to burn in her eyes and she’s finally fleeing the room.

She’s not going to work this case. (She can’t).

.

She tells Cho he’s in charge, before grabing her paperwork on her way out of the office.

.

It’s almost midnight when she finally opens the bottle of Scotch she kept hiden in her bedroom closet for two years.

She starts with one shot, drinking a second, a third and a fourth…

She stops counting at thirteen, pushing the empty glass aside and drinking right from the bottle instead.

_(Fighting the image of her dead father in her head)._

.

She wakes up on her living room floor the next day.  _(A broken bottle of Scotch beside her)._  Trying to get up.

Instead she ends up stumbling, falling. (Shards of broken glass digging into her skin).  _(Blood spilling all over the floor boards)._  Soaking the wood.

And she can’t help but stare.

.

She shows up at work around lunch time. (Her bandaged wrists hiden under her black jacket).

Jane’s eying her worriedly from his couch as soon as she comes into the bullpen and she doesn’t even try to come up with a lie.

Instead she asks Cho about his progress with the girl and tries hard do listen.

(Fighting all those images that come to her own mind).

.

She spends the rest of the day in an hospital room at the psych ward, the girl sitting in the middle of her bed, staring blankly against the wall. (Whispering the same thing over and over again).

_I had to set us free, I had to set us free, I had to set us free…_

She stops when Lisbon finally takes her hand into her own, whispering.  _(I know)._

_._

She ends up in her car in the parking lot. _(Crying for the first time in years)._

And she knows she’s not going to work this case. (She can’t).

_(I had to set us free, too)._

.

She drinks herself to sleep again that night, unable to fight those images in her head.  _(Her brothers screaming for help)._  (Crying for their mother).

Her father far too broken to be fixed again.  _(And herself, kneeling on that dirty floor beside him)._

(Pressing his own gun against his temple). Pulling the trigger.

.

She wakes up the next day spraweld out over her bed.  _(Dizzy)._  (Feeling like hell). (Trying hard to get up).

But she ends up doubling over instead. (Throwing up all over herself).

.

She’s not sure how she ends up in her bathroom, not sure why there’s so much blood and she really isn’t sure how Jane ends up there with her.

(But somehow he does).

They’re sitting in her bathtub, fully clothed and her back against his chest. (Hot water splashing down at them).

And she keeps wishing, wishing and wishing. _(For another time). (Another life)._  (A second chance).

For both of them.

.

When she comes back to her senses, she’s lying in her bed.  _(Her wrists perfectly bandaged)._

And he’s leaning against her bedroom window, watching her closely.  _(Telling her she owes him a dry cleaning)._

It’s meant to be a joke. (But she doesn’t feel like laughing).

.

He tells her that they dropped charges against the girl. (Self defence he says).  _(But she’s going to stay in the psych ward for the rest of her life anyway)._

(And Lisbon can’t stop thinking that maybe she should be there, too).

.

She goes back to work a few days later. And for a while everything goes back to normal.

She keeps smiling.  _(While Jane keeps her busy cleaning up his messes)._

But when she comes back home at night, she’s back in that faithful night.

 _(Back on that dirty carpet)._  (Turning crimson).

.

She wants to tell him.  _(Wants to tell him what she did)_. But she can’t.

It would change everything.  _(And not just her own life)._

And so she simply doesn’t.  _  
_

.

She ends it with a gun at her temple only a few weeks later.

A note left on her coffee table.  _(A note only a teenage girl in the psych ward would understand)._

.

_(I had to set us free)._

**.**

**.**


End file.
